Liberty Counsel filed a response brief in federal court opposing a University of Arizona motion to dismiss a religious discrimination lawsuit from former ethics Professor Daniel Grossenbach, who was unlawfully fired by the university for his parental rights advocacy at local school board meetings where his children attend school. The Christian professor was protecting his children by advocating for reversing public school policies that promoted teachers secretly surveying minors about their gender and sexuality. While the public school district is not affiliated with the university, college officials terminated Grossenbach anyway following anonymous complaints about his religious speech and advocacy.

Despite Grossenbach’s good performance and positive reputation, the lawsuit alleges that the University of Arizona terminated him after discovering that he was an outspoken Christian advocating for change within his local school board to protect his family.

Liberty Counsel argues the university’s motion should be denied stating it discriminated and retaliated against him for exercising his First Amendment rights to speak out according to his religious beliefs and to protect his children. Liberty Counsel is seeking a permanent injunction that declares the university’s discriminatory actions illegal and unconstitutional for violating his constitutional rights of free speech, religious exercise, equal protection, as well as his religious protections under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The lawsuit also requests that the court order the university to reinstate Grossenbach to his prior position and award damages. 

The lawsuit also implicates the Arizona Board of Regents and its Chair, Douglas Goodyear, as well as University of Arizona President Suresh Garimella.

In its motion to dismiss, the University of Arizona claims Grossenbach’s lawsuit, filed in August 2025, failed to meet timeliness deadlines since he was fired in November 2023. However, the response brief notes that Grossenbach was well within timeliness standards because the university had stalled him for 239 days in disclosing any public records regarding his termination, which also violated Arizona state law. In November 2023, the university informed him that it would not be renewing his part-time teaching contract for the following Spring ethics courses citing it had received funding for a full-time faculty member. Yet, the university never hired a full-time professor nor offered his ethics course the following Spring. In fact, the university posted advertisements soliciting resumes for additional part-time professors meeting Grossenbach’s exact skills and experience to teach similar courses to those he had taught for years.

When the university finally disclosed the public records of Grossenbach’s termination in July 2024, they revealed the anonymous complaints based on his public advocacy and religious speech.

The brief states that the university used “fraudulent means” to conceal their unlawful termination of Grossenbach, which prevented him from obtaining the information necessary to bring his claims until August 2025. Upon discovery of the university’s “deceptive” and “discriminatory” conduct 239 days after his firing, Grossenbach filed his charges in a timely manner with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission which issued him a right to sue letter, the brief reads.

University officials also claim government immunity under the Eleventh Amendment. However, Liberty Counsel argues Grossenbach’s claims fall squarely within an exception to the amendment for when officials violate federal law. Government officials are stripped of immunity when their actions violate the Constitution, such as violating of Grossenbach’s First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment rights, and an official’s conduct must yield to the superior authority of the Constitution, wrote Liberty Counsel.

In 2023, the Catalina Foothills School District (CFSD) became subject to public controversy over its policies that promoted teachers to secretly solicit sexual information from children, secretly push radical gender ideologies upon those students, and intentionally keep that information from parents. Some of CFSD’s secret surveys went as far as asking minor children about their sexual preferences and desires. As parents began to speak out, the lawsuit explains that an email surfaced from a middle school principal containing a list of gender-confused students asking teachers to use pronouns inconsistent with their biological sex and conceal it from parents. Yet, “obstinate” school board members refused to discuss the issue with parents. 

Grossenbach, who saw the policies as a “gross intrusion” upon parental rights, was compelled by his religious beliefs to form SaveCFSD, a nonprofit organization focused on educating parents about school board policies and fundamental rights. Grossenbach stands for the principle that parents have the right to direct the upbringing of their children and believes that departing from God’s natural male and female design of human sexuality is a sin. In 2023, Grossenbach spoke several times at school board meetings, which were attended by hundreds of concerned parents, and delivered two-to-three-minute, pre-written speeches. He routinely included a disclaimer that he spoke for himself and not for his employer, and expressed without hate, slander, or violence how the district’s policies violated parental rights. 

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “Professors at public universities and colleges do not shed their constitutional rights to free speech and religious exercise when they work for a university. The motion should be dismissed and the case allowed to proceed. Professor Daniel Grossenbach engaged in constitutionally protected speech, religious expression, and religious exercise and was speaking on matters of public concern regarding his faith, morality, and the community. The University of Arizona cannot fire a professor for his protected speech. Viewpoint discrimination is unlawful and violates the First Amendment and religious discrimination violates Title VII.”

Learn more at lc.org/professor.